{"id":413,"date":"2008-05-16T11:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T11:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html"},"modified":"2008-05-16T11:14:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-16T11:14:00","slug":"three-things-that-make-me-smile-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html","title":{"rendered":"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sad? Discouraged? Depressed?<\/span> Here are three things to cheer you up:<\/p>\n

1. It is now OK for Christians to believe in aliens. <\/span>This according to the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes<\/a>, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory (who knew the Vatican had its own observatory!). In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano<\/span><\/a>, which I used to look forward to reading each month before my subscription expired, Rev. Funes says, “How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?…Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ‘sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”<\/p>\n

Of course, this also leads to some complications. If aliens are God’s creatures, too, does that means it’s wrong for us to destroy their battleships when they show up to annihilate us? Or to house their corpses in top-secret underground government facilities for research purposes? Maybe Christians should only consider cute aliens like Ewoks or E.T. or the little green ones<\/a> as God’s creatures. If only for reasons of self-defense. <\/p>\n

2. Other Christians are trying to protect me from certain harm, mainly in the form of seeing boobies on my Starbucks cup. <\/span>This is a relief, because the combination of caffeine-consumption and breast-viewing can really me up, spiritually speaking. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune<\/span><\/a>, there’s a Christian group in San Diego for whom the too-hot-even-for-coffee depiction of a topless mermaid on the newly designed cup is yet another example of our culture’s decay. According to the group’s leader, Mark Dice, the logo “has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,” he said in a news release. “Need I say more? It’s extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks.” Which, incidentally, is the name of a new coffee-shop venture just announced by the Hooters chain of restaurants. (Rimshot!)<\/span><\/p>\n

(H\/T: Matthew Paul Turner<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3. This text ad recently appeared above my Gmail in-box: <\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

Toenail Fungus Cure<\/span> – <\/span>ToeNailFungus.PublicHealthForum.com<\/span> – <\/span>How to cure toenail fungs in 1 week Written by a well known auther. <\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

I, for one, am always interested in curing my nasty toenail fungs. And if there’s anyone you can trust for this treatment <\/span>—<\/span> not to mention for a nicely written Google ad — it’s a well-known auther.<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

You’re welcome. Have a nice Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sad? Discouraged? Depressed? Here are three things to cheer you up: 1. It is now OK for Christians to believe in aliens. This according to the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory (who knew the Vatican had its own observatory!). In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, which I used to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linkage","category-lists","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nThree Things That Make Me Smile Today - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sad? Discouraged? Depressed? Here are three things to cheer you up: 1. It is now OK for Christians to believe in aliens. This according to the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory (who knew the Vatican had its own observatory!). In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, which I used to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-05-16T11:14:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Sad? Discouraged? Depressed? Here are three things to cheer you up: 1. It is now OK for Christians to believe in aliens. This according to the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory (who knew the Vatican had its own observatory!). In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, which I used to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2008-05-16T11:14:00+00:00","author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html","name":"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-05-16T11:14:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-05-16T11:14:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/05\/three-things-that-make-me-smile-today.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Three Things That Make Me Smile Today"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}